Class 

Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



PIONEER 

PRESBYTERIAN ISM 

IN TENNESSEE. 



ADDRESSES 

DELIVERED AT THE TENNESSEE EXPOSITION 
ON PRESBYTERIAN DAY, OCTOBER 28, 1897 



RICHMOND, VA.: 

THE PRESBYTERIAN COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION, 




COPTEIGHTED BY 

JAMES K. HAZEN, Secretary of Publication, 
1 898. 

2nd OOP 



0 COPIES RECEIVED. 





INTRODUCTION. 



The accompanying addresses were delivered 
on October 28, 1897, in connection with the ob- 
servance of "Presbyterian Day" at the Tennes- 
see Centennial and International Exposition. 
The arrangements incident to this day were 
in the hands of a commission that had been 
appointed by the Synod of Nashville. The ex- 
ercises were held in the spacious auditorium on 
the Exposition grounds, and the addresses were 
listened to by an audience of three thousand 
people. The members of the Synod of Nash- 
ville occupied seats on the platform. The in- 
terest manifested was remarkable. For four 
solid hours the speech-making continued, the 
only intermission being that given to a solo 
by Miss Doak, the great-great-granddaughter 
of Eev. Samuel Doak. Numbers of people sat 
from the opening to the close of this long ses- 
sion, arising at last from the hard wooden 
benches to express their great enthusiasm over 



4 



Introduction. 



what they had heard, and their fresh allegiance 
and devotion to the Presbyterian cause. 

" I thank God I am a Presbyterian," was a 
statement heard again and again as the vast 
audience dispersed. It was a memorable day 
in the history of the church in Tennessee, 
where "Pioneer Presby terianism " has such a 
noble and inspiring history. 

In answer to a widespread demand, as well 
as to preserve in permanent form the speeches, 
whose historical and ecclesiastical value is very 
great, this volume is published. It is a source 
of deep regret that we are not able also to give 
the address of Dr. John S. Macintosh, on 
"National Indebtedness to Scotch-Irish Pres- 
byterians." While the subject matter was not 
so germane to the title of this little volume as is 
that of the addresses here given, Dr. Mac- 
intosh's speech was eloquent and effective. It 
is omitted only because of his inability to fur- 
nish manuscript. 

James I. Vance. 

Nashville, Tenn. 



PROGRAMME. 



AT THE AUDITORIUM -n A. M. 

The Moderator of the Synod of Nashville, Rev. Frank 
McCutchan, Presiding. 

Music by the Centennial Band. 

Prayer: By Rev. Geo. Summey, D. D. 

Address: By Judge C. W. Heiskell, Memphis, Tenn. 

Subject: " Pioneer Presbyter ianism in Tennessee.'''' 

Solo : By Mrs. Gates P. Thruston. 

Remarks: By the Rev. James I. Vance, D. D., intro- 
ducing Dr. Hall. 

Address : By the Rev. John Hall, D. D. , New York City. 

Rev. John S. MoIntosh, D. D. , alternate. 
Subject : ' ' National Indebtedness to Scotch- Irish 
Presbyterians. " 



6 



Pkogkamme. 



PROGRAMME— continued. 



AT THE AUDITORIUM 2 P. M. 

The Chairman of the Centennial Commission, Rev. James 
I. Vance, D. D., Presiding. 

Addeess: By the Rev. J. W. Bachman, D. D., Chatta- 
nooga, Term. 
Subject: " Samuel Book and his Successors." 1 

Solo : By Miss Doak, great-great-granddaughter of Rev. 
Samuel Doak. 



Remarks: By the Rev. R. C. Reed, D. D., introducing 
Dr. Moore. 

Address: By Prof. Walter W. Moore, D. D., LL. D., 
Union Theological Seminary, Ya. 
Rev. G. B. Steicklee, alternate. 
Subject: " Presbyterianism and Education.''' 1 

Prayer and Benediction: By Rev. J. Albert Wallace, 
D. D. 



PIONEER PRESBYTERIAN ISM 
IN TENNESSEE 



Pioneer Presbyterianism 
In Tennessee. 

By Hon. C. W. HEISKELL. 



HANOVEK Presbytery was formed in 1755. 
It comprised all the Presbyterian minis- 
ters in Virginia — with two or three exceptions. 

Its formation was preceded by, and insepar- 
ably connected with, Morris' Reading House. 
This was the first of several buildings erected 
by those dissatisfied with the preaching of the 
parish (Episcopalian) incumbents. 

A Mr. Morris, with others, getting hold of 
Lather on (Jalatians, and afterwards (1743), a 
volume of Whitfield's Sermons, resolved to meet 
every Sunday, alternately, at each others' houses, 
to read and pray. Morris was soon invited to 
other places to read sermons to the people. 

The dignitaries of the Established Church 
became alarmed. They summoned the leaders 
of the movement to appear before the Governor 
and Council. 

On their way to Williamsburg to meet the 
Governor one of them found a Westminster 



10 PlONEEE PbESBYTEBIANISM 



Confession of Faith. On studying it, with com- 
mon consent, they adopted it as embodying 
their faith. 

On July 6, 1743, William Robinson preached 
the first Presbyterian sermon to the Presbyte- 
rians of Hanover. 

In 1747 Rev. Samuel Davies came to Han- 
over, having obtained a license for four meet- 
ing-houses, a thing, says the historian, never 
heard of before. Davies was a friend of learn- 
ing, a champion of freedom, and, next to Whit- 
field, the most eloquent preacher of his age. 
He was the father of Presbyterianism in the 
Southern provinces. 

Revs. John and Samuel Blair, whose descend- 
ants afterward settled at Jonesboro, Tenn., and 
Rev. John Roane, no doubt the progenitor of 
Archibald Roane, second Governor of Tennes- 
see, soon followed Davies. 

But the work of Hanover Presbytery was 
prosecuted amid difficulties. The war whoop 
of the savage often awoke the solitary settler to 
receive his death-blow from tomahawk or the 
scalping-knife. The minister and congregation 
marched to church, with shot-pouch over their 
shoulders, and their guns on their shoulders. 
When they entered pulpit and pew, they di- 
vested themselves of these accoutrements, the 
one to preach and the other to hear. 



In Tennessee. 



11 



Kev. Charles Cummins, the fighting Presby- 
terian minister, who preached to two congrega- 
tions near Abingdon, Ya., in 1772, and after, 
was a godly man, but for many he illustrated 
the qualities of muscular Christianity and the 
church militant. He accompanied John Sevier 
in many of his campaigns, and never went into 
a fight without stripping off his coat and, as 
profanely said of him, "praying like time and 
fighting like — " something else. 

But these dangers and perils of frontier life 
were not the only discouragement surrounding 
these pioneers of Presbyterianism. 

The Episcopal clergy had a church in every 
county in Virginia. They claimed to be a 
branch of the national establishment. Fostered 
by the British crown, the whole province taxed 
for their support, they encroached upon the 
rights of other denominations. 

In 1742 it was enacted in Virginia, that no 
minister should officiate within the province 
without a certificate of ordination from an Eng- 
lish bishop, and a promise to conform to the 
orders and constitution of the Church of Eng- 
land. Presbyterians were prosecuted, sum- 
moned before the Governor and Council, and 
imprisoned, and magistrates were required to 
"suppress and prohibit all itinerant preachers." 

Though thus environed, the pioneers of our 



12 Pioneer Presbyterianism 



faith did not hesitate. They travelled fifteen, 
twenty, fifty miles to preach. With no beaten 
road to follow, no guide-board to point the way, 
beset by hostile savages, and the Church of 
England, through heat and cold, hunger and 
storm, in perils of the wilderness, imprisonment 
and death, they told the story of the crucified 
Redeemer. 

No difiiculties deterred these dauntless sons 
of the church. But how could it be otherwise? 
The heralds of salvation in Virginia, Tennes- 
see and the Carolinas of those days were, 
some of them, descendants of the sturdy re- 
formers, who resisted Spanish tyranny on the 
dikes and sand dunes of Holland ; some of 
whom were hacked into pieces in the butchery 
of Naarden — torn limb from limb in the mas- 
sacre of Maestricht — 8,000 slaughtered in the 
Sack of Antwerp, hung up by the feet to die, or 
tied back to back and cast into the river at the 
taking of Zutphen ; some of whom suffered in 
the siege of Leyden, where the famine pressed 
so sore that the flesh of dogs and cats was a 
luxury to eat, and hunger- stricken mothers 
dropped dead in the street, with their dead 
babies in their arms ; who fought on the ice at 
Haarlem, and in the siege of that city ate the 
boiled hides of horses and oxen, the grass and 
nettles from the graves of the dead ; and when 



In Tennessee. 



13 



tliej surrendered with promise of full immu- 
nity, were butchered almost to a man ; who for 
thirty years suffered siege and famine and assas- 
sination, crucifixion, burning and burying alive 
from the minions of Spain, under Alva, Parma, 
and Don John of Austria, and who came off 
victorious at last, thank the Lord ! 

What less could be expected of those, some 
of whose forefathers perished in St. Bartholo- 
mew, or found safety in exile, upon the revoca- 
tion of the edict of Nantes? Some of whom 
thundered with Cromwell and his Ironsides at 
Naseby and Marston Moor. Some of whose 
mothers and fathers had wandered, houseless 
and hungry, in the glens of Scotland, in her 
persecutions — not a few of whom had seen, no 
doubt, the heroes of Londonderry and Ennis- 
Killen, and, farther back, some the fires of 
Smithfield, and heard Latimer exclaiming to 
his co-martyr: "Be of good cheer, Master 
Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day 
light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, 
as I trust shall never be put out ; " and some of 
whose ancestry, no doubt, were of the 2,000 
Presbyterian ministers who endured privation 
and poverty and penury, rather than desert 
their colors for prelacy under the dissolute 
Charles of England. 

For our pioneer fathers to have been less 



14 Pioneer Peesbtterianism 



intrepid and courageous would have branded 
them as unworthy of their heroic ancestry, and 
our blood-sealed church; a church whose his- 
tory, traditions and sympathies have always 
been on the side of liberty and the rights of 
man; a church, the basic principle of whose 
constitution combines religion, liberty and law ; 
and all the aims it cherished, and the dangers 
it feared from arbitrary power, united its fol- 
lowers of those days, almost to a man, on the 
side of American independence. 

But is this any special wonder ? 

Their fathers had fought the battles of civil 
and religious liberty in Holland, in Germany, 
in Scotland, and in England for two hundred 
years, and though in France the harvest was 
longer coming, yet the throes of the French 
revolution were but the aftermath of St. Bar- 
tholomew, and the origin of the French republic. 
Huguenot blood at last sealed the doom of 
tyranny; and the republic is but the efflores- 
cence and the fruit of that love of liberty for 
which died the noblest sons of France. 

Episcopalianism of revolutionary days — not 
of these days — was extra loyal to king and 
crown ; Presbyterianism was rebel to the core. 
Our Pi evolutionary war was fought, not only 
against taxation without representation, but 
for the rights of conscience and religious liberty. 



In Tennessee. 



15 



Presbyterians then preached the duty of resist- 
ance to tyrants. They cheered their people in 
the dreary gloom of that conflict, and more of 
them than of all other denominations com- 
bined sealed their devotion to their country 
with their blood. 

To the Presbyterian clergy the enemy felt an 
especial antipathy. One Tory writer described 
the opponents of government as a "united fac- 
tion of Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and 
smugglers," as Peveril of the Peak denounced 
the opponents of royalty as round-heads, 
poachers, and Presbyterians. Another said : 
"The Presbyterians have been the chief and 
principal instruments in all of these flaming 
measures. They do always and ever will act 
against government, from that restless and tur- 
bulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always 
distinguished them." And Lecky, the most re- 
cent English historian, says: "The Irish Pres- 
byterians appear to have been bitterly anti- 
English, and outside of New England, it is pro- 
bable that they did more of the real fighting of 
the revolution than any other class ; the back- 
woodsmen were also vehement Whigs." 

These hard-headed Presbyterians were the 
first to resist British aggression. They lit the 
fires that blazed on the Alamance. They form- 
ulated and promulgated the Mecklenburg de- 



16 Pioneer Presbyterian ism 



claration, the first declaration of Independence 
in America. They formed the Watauga Asso- 
ciation in Tennessee, the first free and inde- 
pendent government on the western continent. 
And when final disaster and overthrow seemed 
inevitable, when Cornwallis had swept every- 
thing before him in the Carolinas, and designed 
to march up to and through Virginia in the rear 
of General Washington, and deliver the death- 
blow to the rebellion, and had sent the gallant 
Ferguson as the advance of this movement, 
who was it but these same sturdy Presbyterians, 
under Sevier and Shelby, Cleveland, McDowel, 
and Williams, and the Blackwater Presbyte- 
rians, under Campbell, who with no weapons 
but their trusty rifles, and no rations but parched 
corn and branch water, met this advance guard 
at King's Mountain, and overwhelmingly de- 
feated it, which Mr. Jefferson said "was the joy- 
ful enunciation of that turn of the tide of success 
that terminated the Eevolutionary War with 
the seal of our independence." 

The Presbytery of Hanover did not lag in her 
devotion to American freedom. In 1776, in a 
memorial to the Legislature of Virginia, they 
congratulated that body on "the almost uni- 
versal attachment of the Presbyterians to 
the cause of liberty and the rights of man- 
kind." 



In Tennessee. 



17 



From this virile source flowed the stream of 
Presbyterianism down into Tennessee. 

Near 1770 the van of Presbyterian immigra- 
tion from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, 
and the Carolinas entered this State. It occu- 
pied the right bank of the Holston in the 
present counties of Sullivan and Hawkins. 
Rev. Charles Cummins, already mentioned, and 
Kev. Joseph Rhea, whose many sons, still true 
to the faith, are with us, and have been all 
through our history, were the first Presbyterian 
ministers, and, so far as I can find, the first min- 
isters of Christ who preached in this State. 

In 1776 they accompanied Colonel Christian 
Cummins, as chaplains into the Cherokee coun- 
try, south of Little River. 

In 1782 New Bethel Church was founded in 
the forks of the Holston and Watauga Rivers, 
and this was the first Presbyterian, and, so far 
as I am able to discover, the first church with- 
in the bounds of Tennessee, with the exception 
of a Baptist Church erected on Buffalo Ridge 
in 1779. Rev. Samuel Doak, ordained by Han- 
over Presbytery in 1778, preached to Upper 
Concord and Hopewell Churches in Sullivan 
county for two years. He then moved to Lit- 
tle Limestone, in Washington county, where he 
lived and labored for more than thirty years. 

He and Charles Cummins organized Concord 



i8 PlONEER PeESBYTERIANISM 

and New Providence Churches, in Carter's Val- 
ley, Hawkins county, and New Bethel Church, 
in Greene county, and Salem Church, at the 
home of Dr. Doak. 

Doak was a man of a steadfast, sterling char- 
acter, and sound learning. He married John 
Sevier to his bonnie Kate, was present when 
Sevier and his men started for King's Moun- 
tain, and tradition says he delivered an address 
to those brave backwoodsmen, and offered a 
prayer for their success. We can see the hardy 
poineers, with bared heads, grouped around the 
Doctor, who, in skull cap and knee-breeches, 
invokes the blessing of heaven upon them, and 
calls on him who rules the destiny of nations to 
lead them to the battle and to victory. And as 
they prepare to mount, you hear the Doctor's 
stentorian voice, "Forward, brave men, with 
the sword of the Lord and of Gideon!" In 
1785 he founded the first school, and built the 
first school-house, in the State, which, indeed, 
was the first literary institution in the Missis- 
sippi Valley. This was Martin's Academy, 
afterwards Washington College, organized un- 
der authority of the Legislature of the State of 
Franklin. 

Evidence is abundant that wherever one of 
these preachers settled he first prayed, then 
preached, built a church, a school-house, and 



In Tennessee., 



19 



spent the rest of his life praying, preaching, 
teaching, and on occasion, fighting." 

In 1783-'84 Kev. Samuel Houston, came. 
He preached at Providence, in Greene county, 
for four or five years. He was a member of, 
and opened the Franklin Constitutional Con- 
vention with prayer. 

In 1 785 Kev. Hezekiah Balch came, and Lake 
ten years later. Rev. John Crosson preached 
to the Jonesboro, Providence, and New Bethel 
Churches in 1786. 

Rev. Gideon Blackburn preached at Mary ville, 
Blount county, in 1793-'94. Him Isaac Ander- 
son succeeded in 1810. The latter founded 
Maryville College in 1821. Blackburn removed 
to Williamson county and preached at Frank- 
lin. In 1789 Samuel Carrick preached at the 
confluence of French Broad and Holston Rivers, 
in Knox county. There he organized a church 
in 1792. In that year Knoxville was settled, 
and Carrick pushed on to that place. He organ- 
ized the first church there. He opened the 
Constitutional Convention of 1796 at Knoxville 
with prayer, and by special request preached a 
sermon at that opening session. 

Thus with reverential recognition of the Ruler 
of the universe, our fathers, over a hundred 
years ago, framed their constitution, establish- 
ing civil and religious liberty — a constitution 



20 PlONEER PRESBYTERIANISM 



which Jefferson said was the least imperfect and 
most republican of the State constitutions. 

In 1800 Kev. Charles Coffin settled at Greene- 
ville. He was a professor in Greeneville Col- 
lege from 1804 to 1810, when he was made 
president of that college, which Balch had 
founded in 1794. Coffin was a man of liberal 
education and lofty Christian character. His 
numerous descendants honor his memory by 
loyalty to the truth and to Presbyterianism. 
In 1808 Rev. James W. Stephenson founded 
Mount Zion Church, in Maury county, and Rev. 
Robert Henderson in the same year preached at 
Murfree's Springs, now Murfreesboro and Pis- 
gah, in Rutherford county; also at Nashville 
and Franklin. Rev. Phillip Lindsay came to 
Nashville in 1824, and for twenty-five years ex- 
erted a widespread influence for good. 

Rev. Thomas B. Craighead before that (in 
1780) settled in Haysborough, now Spring 
Hill, near Nashville, and there began his long 
pastorate. He, Andrew Jackson, James Rob- 
ertson, all three Presbyterians, and others, were 
named in the act of 1785 of North Carolina, as 
president and directors of Davidson Academy, 
afterward Davidson College, the origin of Nash- 
ville University. In 1829 the Presbytery of 
Western District was formed, and in 1830 Rev. 
Samuel M. Williamson founded the first Pres- 
byterian Church in Memphis, Tenn. 



In Tennessee. 



21 



As early as 1790 a cordon of Presbyterians 
stretched from "Watauga to Nashville. By 1797 
there were twenty-five Presbyterian congrega- 
tions in Tennessee, men of stalwart frame and 
stalwart faith. Nelson, Gallaher, and Ross, 
McCampbell, Minnis, and others came later. 

One would delight to dwell, did time permit, 
on the individualities of these doughty defend- 
ers of our faith. But from what has been said, 
some of the characteristics of pioneer Presby- 
terians are incidentally brought to view. 

Should one recount the virtues of robust, 
Christian manhood, one would say they were 
recognition of the Triune God, and the plenary 
inspiration of his word ; responsibility of indi- 
vidual man, love of truth and honesty, hatred 
of sham and all mendacity, devotion to duty, 
love of learning, home, and country. These 
were of the faith of our fathers, and of the 
lives of our fathers. And however primitive 
their home life, their church life and their insti- 
tutions of learning, they were all sanctified by 
faith in the Lord Christ, and harbor gave to 
pure lives, sound learning, and evangelical truth. 

Shall we look into one of their churches and 
see their worship? The church is in a large 
grove — God's first temple — near some bold, re- 
freshing spring, emblem of the water of life. 
It is of logs. It is from twenty-five to thirty 



22 Pioneek Presbyteeianism 



feet wide, from forty to sixty long, and from 
twenty to thirty high. The pews are unplaned 
benches of pine plank or slabs, eight to sixteen 
feet long, mostly without backs, though once 
in a while you find an enclosed pew, but with 
backs so high and steep that children groan to 
sit in them. These planks or slabs, understand, 
are supported by from four to six legs, two at 
each end, and sometimes two in the middle; 
one end of the leg being driven slantingly 
through an auger hole in the board, and fast- 
ened with a wedge of wood driven in this end 
of the leg. There is no fire-place ; stoves had 
not been head of — and no fire in the house the 
coldest day that ever blew. A few of the well- 
to-do bring hot bricks wrapped in flannel, and 
apply their feet to them, and thus make life en- 
durable during the services. The congregation 
gathers from an area of six to twelve miles — a 
carriage or two, a buggy or two, a few two-horse 
wagons, and many horses and colts, paterfami- 
lias, with a ten-year-old behind him, and mater- 
familias with a four-months-old before, and a 
seven-year-old behind her. 

When they enter the church, the men sit on 
one side and the women on the other side of 
the main aisle, running from the entrance at 
one end to the pulpit at the other end of the 
church. 



In Tennessee. 



23 



The pulpit is a curiosity. It will scarcely 
hold three men standing up. It is boxed and 
panelled, and so high that the minister's head 
is fifteeen feet above the congregation. 

He reads the hymn and then hands the 
hymn-book, the only one in the house, down to 
the precentor, standing just under the pulpit, 
who has to reach up to get it. He at once 
proceeds to line out the hymn and raise the 
tune, thus : 

Am I a soldier of the cross, 

A follower of the Lamb ; 
And should I fear to own his cause, 

Or blush to speak his name ? 

The congregation join in the singing, some 
before, some behind, the precentor, but all full 
of zeal. The crying children swell the chorus, 
till mothers administer soothing syrup from 
the maternal font, when they are quiet — the 
babies, I mean. 

The prayer is from fifteen to twenty minutes 
long, and woe to the boy or girl who does not 
stand up through it all. The sermon usually 
takes an hour-and-a-half, if not two hours — go- 
ing sometimes up to seventhly, and then fifteen 
minutes on finally. Mother's time is taken up 
listening to the sound exposition of the word, 
keeping John and Joe and Sam awake, and 
now and again, from her recticule, with shame- 



24 Pioneer Presbyterianism. 



faced surreptitiousness, slipping a piece of cake 
to five or six younger children, and if Matthew, 
Mark, Luke and John become too obstreper- 
ous, she whispers : " Boys, I'll settle with you 
to-morrow." She never whips Sunday, but oh ! 
the tortures of that fearful looking for of the 
morrow. She will be sure to redeem her pro- 
mise on Monday, and the boys will be sure to 
remember it, too, both before and after taking. 
I speak feelingly on this point, because I know. 

If not able, and it often is, the sermon is 
sound, especially on predestination, man's de- 
pravity, free grace and hell-fire. And every 
member of the church goes home — and some- 
one takes the preacher — edified in faith and 
doctrine, and will dicuss with you from dark 
till dawn, the tenets of Calvin, and get the 
better of you in the argument. And that com- 
munity is noted far and wide for its sobriety, 
steadfast honesty, and high civic virtues. 

Let us enter one of these homes. It is a 
winter's Saturday evening. A negro man is 
chopping wood. A great pile is cut for Sun- 
day, for on that holy day sound of ax or ham- 
mer is never heard. The negroes, on Saturday 
night, black all the boots and shoes for Sunday. 
The children crack walnuts or hickory nuts — 
we are in the country — for Sunday. To play 
marbles on Sunday would be a mortal sin, 



In Tennessee. 



25 



and to play on any day for keeps would be as 
bad ; you never saw a Presbyterian boy of that 
day gamble for marbles, even. No work, no 
everyday deed, save of necessity or mercy, is 
done on that day. And now we gather around 
the evening fire. You feel the influence of the 
mother's presence. She is reading from the 
word, or telling some Bible story or holy lesson 
from her own rich experience. When the 
father or some passing minister takes the well- 
worn Bible for family devotion, she has all the 
negro house-servants called in to "prayers," 
reading the Scriptures, singing a hymn and 
prayer. As bed-time approaches, the smaller 
children gather at mother's knees and repeat, 
"Now I lay me down to sleep," and the larger, 
" Our Father." And oh ! how often in after life, 
when darkness is over them, when the storm 
breaks, and the billows sweep over the soul, 
"how often do they fall on their knees and sob 
out the prayer divine tenderness uttered for us, 
and which has been repeated for twenty centuries 
since by millions of humble and sinful men." 
And how many have been saved from wreck 
and eternal ruin by the memory of mother's 
holy solicitude and the divine compassion. 
And now it is Sunday morning. The morning 
prayer has been said, breakfast is over, and 
the day begins. All gather around the fire- 



26 



Pioneer Presbyterianism 



side and read alternate verses in the Bible — 
there are no Sunday-schools — and if there is 
no preaching, which is often the case, when the 
hour's reading is through, the Shorter Cate- 
chism is to be conned, yes, every question 
answered "off book." Oh! what a task; what 
horrors hang around that book! And yet, few 
in after life regret having learned in youth that 
most superb statement of the doctrines of di- 
vine truth which ever came from uninspired 
pen. There is said to have been a rule for 
bringing up children anciently prevalent in 
Scotland, as follows: "The Shorter Catechism 
for the soul, oatmeal porridge for the inner, and 
for the outer man, a few twigs of the bonnie 
birch applied at the proper time and on the 
appointed place. Save the porridge, Presby- 
terian children had like pabulum in old times. 

And now all the negro boys and girls are 
called in, and standing around "Old Mistis," 
are asked the simple questions of our faith: 
"Who made you?" "Who redeemed you?" 
and so the day passes. Cold dinner, cold sup- 
per. There is no levity. Whistling is for- 
bidden. Loud laughter, secular reading, or 
singing is prohibted. A solemn stillness, a 
holy atmosphere pervades the house. Mother's 
face shines serene with the peace of God, and 
every Christian grace adds new sweetness to 



In Tennessee. 



27 



her smile, making her beautiful in the sight of 
men and angels. Does a negro get hurt ? " Old 
Mistis " sees every need supplied. Is there 
any sick or in want in the neighborhood ? Her 
hand is ever open. Light comes where she 
enters. Her presence doeth good like a medi- 
cine. She walks with God. And when she is 
called home her quiet voice makes melody, and 
her sanctified memory lives in the lives of her 
children. Her charities, her benefactions and 
her holy ministrations are an inspiration and a 
benison, and the evangel of her heavenly pil- 
grimage on earth leaves the aroma of her 
high example to bless the world after she is 
gone. 

And do you say these people are narrow — 
these homes cramped ? Perhaps ! but let me 
tell you, filial affection and parental authority, 
industry, virtue and domestic happiness dwelt 
in those homes. Humility and vital piety 
dwelt there. Love of learning, of home, of 
country, liberty, honorable manhood and beau- 
tiful womanhood dwelt there. A dishonored 
son scarcely ever left such a home. No hoyden 
ever returned to it in the soiled and bedraggled 
habiliments of shame. Bad boys, sometimes, 
yes ; but almost always they returned to glad- 
den the breaking heart. Out of these homes 
went forth staunch, steadfast, reliable men; 



28 Pioneer Peesbyterianism 



and wives the sweetest, the sensiblest and the 
best God ever blest a man withal. It takes a 
thousand years to make a gentleman. Two 
thousand will scarce suffice without the in- 
fluence of the Christian home. It is the glory 
of Presbyterianism that it has given to the 
world, home-bred, high-born gentlemen; and 
the chief glory of pioneer Presbyterianism in 
Tennessee was its mothers and its homes. 
Great men came from these homes. John 
Sevier, Archibald Roane, William Blount, 
Andrew Jackson, Hugh Lawson White, James 
K. Polk, John Bell, Felix Grundy, Judges 
Scott and McKinney, McFarland, Nelson, and 
many others, and the Cleveland who fought at 
King's Mountain was, in all probability, a Pres- 
byterian; we know that that illustrious exem- 
plar of honesty, a possible descendant of King's 
Mountain Cleveland, he who stood like a stone 
wall against national shame and national dis- 
honor, Grover Cleveland, is a Presbyterian. 

Do you wonder that Tennessee is pre-emi- 
nently a State of families and of homes? 
Blessed is that people where family affection 
and love of home are fostered and cherished. 
For what is our country but an aggregation of 
families? And what is patriotism but the love 
of the aggregated home of the nation ? Out of 
334,000 families in Tennessee, by the last cen- 



In Tennessee. 



29 



sus, 144,000 occupied their own homes, free of 
encumbrance. No State in the Union makes a 
better, few as good a showing. Do you won- 
der that Tennessee has won the proud distinc- 
tion of the Volunteer State, when almost alone 
she fought the Creek war ; when, without a re- 
quisition, she offered 2,500 volunteers at the 
very beginning of the war of 1812, and 28,000 
of her sons volunteered in that war? When 
asked to furnish 2,800 volunteers for the Mexi- 
can war, 30,000 offered themselves! But these 
were the sons of those to whom, when Sevier 
called for volunteers for King's Mountain, it was 
not a question who would go, but who would be 
conscripted to stay at home. 

In the war between the States, Tennessee 
furnished 115,000 Confederate and 31,000 white 
Federal soldiers. For this page of her history 
she makes no apology. She boasts of the valor 
of her sons, and of their devotion to duty. 
She opens wide her bosom with all a mother's 
love and exaltation to receive their sacred dust 
when they die, and repels with indignant scorn 
every imputation on their patriotism. Yea, 
like Bizpah, she guards their good name from 
all the vultures and harpies of history who 
would asperse their cause or minimize their 
fame. Her mighty heart swells with equal 
pride as the graves of the blue and the gray, 



30 Pioneer Presbyterianism 



which scar her now peaceful breast, are marked 
with mausoleum, monument or cenotaph. And 
her reunited sons join in the threnody. 

' 4 Fold up the banner, smelt the guns ! 
Love rules; her gentle purpose runs. 
A mighty mother turns in tears 
The pages of her battle years, 
Lamenting all her fallen sons." 

Yea ! passing through the fiery glories of a 
thousand battle-fields, fiercely striving for the 
mastery, the sons of Tennessee join her erst- 
while foes in loud acclaim ! 

' ' Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ! " 

And if that fateful day ever comes, which 
heaven f orf end, when foreign foe attack us, if in- 
ternecine strife is precipitated with arrogant capi- 
tal, and dissatisfied labor at swords drawn ; if 
the red flag of anarchism ever floats triumphant 
over the city hall of Chicago, or New York, 
which God forbid, then the home-bred, liberty- 
loving Tennesseeans, gray and blue alike, will 
stand an impenetrable battle array against the 
oncoming destruction. And God grant in that 
awful day, if it must come, that their patriotism, 
as was their fathers', may be fortified by homes 
abattised and bulwarked by an unfaltering trust 



In Tennessee. 



31 



in the God of all the earth; and their hearts 
inspired by the same courageous faith which 
has characterized Presbyterianism in all the 
ages of its heroic history. 

Ladies and gentlemen, pioneer Presbyteri- 
anism in Tennessee was tried as by fire : 

' ' Every word that it spake had been firely furnaced 
In a blast of a life, that had struggled in earnest! " 

Poverty and suffering followed it, when it 
moved forward, and where it dwelt there they 
dwelt, also. Perils of war, perils of Indians, 
flood and sudden alarms ; perils of conquest, im- 
prisonment and death ; perils of unfriendly legis- 
lation, persecution, Tories, and the trackless 
wilderness, added to its dangers — but from them 
all, it came forth full of hope and vigorous life. 

If its adherents were stern, they were strong 
and brave. If sticklers for the five points of 
Calvinism, God's absolute sovereignty, man's 
total depravity, God's free grace, man's free 
will and the final preservation of the sacra- 
mental host of God's elect — they were also 
sticklers for justice, truth, and purity of life. 
If their religion seemed austere and grim, their 
downright honesty and reliability were a full 
compensation. If Sunday was observed with 
strictness and narrowness, their humble piety 
and advanced views on resistance to tyrants, 
civil and ecclesiastical, were surely in their favor. 



32 PlONEEE PltESBYTERIANISM. 



The government of the Presbyterian Church 
is a representative democracy, and admirably 
commendable to all freemen. If those of the 
olden time are looked upon as cranks and puri- 
tanical — whatever that may mean — it should be 
remembered, to their everlasting honor, that 
they were law-abiding citizens. Liberty regu- 
lated by law is the Presbyterian conception 
of civil government; and they only cease to 
obey the law, when the law itself endangers 
liberty. So great was then, and is now, their 
respect for law, and its wholesome enforcement, 
that you cannot find an experienced criminal 
lawyer in the state who will risk a real Presby- 
terian on the jury when he hopes to clear a 
rascal. It is well to remember, too, that men 
who accuse Presbyterians of being cranks, be- 
cause they are in favor of propriety, decency 
and sobriety, are the men who call those broad 
and liberal, who are in favor of free rum, free 
riot, free love, and free everything, except what 
makes for peace and truth and righteousness. 

Presbyterianism has always required a "thus 
saith the Lord " for what it does or does not 
do. Hence, Presbyterians search the Scrip- 
tures to find what the Lord says. The old- 
time Presbyterian mother was a great Bible 
student. She was a Bible oracle. 

These mothers in Israel exerted great influ- 



In Tennessee. 



33 



ence, not only in their own families, but in the 
community. Almost without exception, they 
detested slavery, and to them, perhaps, more 
than to any other cause, is to be attributed the 
advanced position of Tennessee in early days 
on emancipation. Under her Constitution of 
1796 free negroes voted. In 1801 Tennessee 
enacted a law favoring voluntary emancipation. 
In 1824 there was formed at Columbia "The 
Moral and Religious Manumission Society of 
West Tennessee " ; and in 1827, of the one hun- 
dred and thirty-five anti-slavery societies in 
America, one hundred and six were in the South, 
and twenty-five of these were in Tennessee. 
Three-fifths of her people were in favor of slave 
emancipation before it was thought of in Boston. 
Shortly after the Tennessee Manumission So- 
ciety memorialized Congress to prohibit internal 
slave trade, the citizens of Ohio, after selling 
land to three hundred negroes, freed by the 
will of John Randolph of Roanoke, raised an 
armed force and refused to let them take pos- 
session. When the liberty-loving Presbyte- 
rians of Tennessee were striving for the freeing 
of Southern slaves, Illinois was passing her law, 
fining any free negro fifty dollars who stayed 
in that State ten days, with the intention of 
remaining, and if the fine and costs were not 
paid immediately, the negro was to be sold to 



34 Pioneer Presbyterianism 



anyone who would pay them. And Philadel- 
phians were burning African Presbyterian 
churches, and in New York negroes^were ter- 
rorized and slain by the vengeful mob. 

But, for all this, when Tennessee saw the 
Constitution of our fathers denounced as a 
"league with hell and a covenant with death," 
and she to be dragooned into submission to 
unconstitutional views of the government they 
had established, 115,000 of her sons leaped to 
arms. But that conflict is ended, and now, 
turning our backs upon the past, save its im- 
perishable glories, fully realizing that old things 
have passed away, save the memory of knightly 
deeds and deathless fame, renewing loyal alle- 
giance to the flag of the indissoluble Union of 
indistructible states, we earnestly address our- 
selves to the new conditions that confront us 
all, and the new problems that press for solu- 
tion; yet we must be allowed to rejoice in the 
conviction that those sorry historians who im- 
pugn the motives of gentlemen and traduce the 
deeds of soldiers, will sink into forgetfulness, 
and that posterity will vindicate us, as the only 
defenders of the Constitution of '76 — to estab- 
lish which, all our fathers fought — and to main- 
tain which, in its integrity, ours taught us to 
fight, and we did. 

Presbyterians, in these Centennial days, 



In Tennessee. 



35 



while we kindle anew our patriotic ardor to 
our common country, and renew our loyal de- 
votion to our native State, may we not hope 
that Presbyterianism will take on new life? 
May it not be a question, whether we are using 
our talent to the full measure of our responsi- 
bilities, and our opportunities, and filling our 
place in the march of time ; comportably with 
our past accomplishments, and present envi- 
ronments? While with the sturdy reformers 
of Germany, we still declare "Here we stand; 
we cannot do otherwise; God help us! " and 
are proud to believe that Presbyterianism 
stands to-day, as it always has stood, for 
robust faith, reliable character, Bible religion, 
vital piety, and heroic fight for liberty and 
the truth, we cannot fail to realize the battles 
nowbeing fought, and to be fought, for God, 
for country and for man's redemption. Under 
the magic charm and inspiration of our past 
achievements; in the golden after-glow of the 
great examples in our history, with renewed 
vigor and consecration, and ever-broadening 
charity, let us lock shields with the other great 
armies of the church militant, and with them, 
march to victory over the enemies of country, 
of God and truth. 



Rev. SAMUEL DOAK. 



Rev. Samuel Doak. 

By J. W. BACHMAN, D. D. 



THERE are periods and places which should 
never be forgotten. They make the foci 
of ellipsis which encompass infinite benedic- 
tions. There are times when the faculties of 
mind and heart and soul glow with a strange 
brilliancy ; and these, gathering up all the good 
of the past and the hopes of the future, pour 
along man's pathway a flood of truth, principle 
and righteousness that honors God and blesses 
all succeeding ages. 

JJ There are times when the world enjoys moods 
of genius and piety. It may last for a decade, 
or cover a hundred years. During this period 
men move out on the stage, act their part, die, 
and many of them lie in unmarked graves ; but 
through them — their labors, their prayers and 
tears, the world has had an uplift that has 
made the angels sing for joy. 

In the clays of Pericles, philosophy, oratory, 
poetry, culture, art and statesmanship culmi- 
nated in a glory and excellence which have 
given models that still hold sway in every field. 



40 Rev. Samuel Doak. 



After more than two thousand years, when you 
speak of oratory, you think of Demosthenes; 
of poetry, Horner rises before you; or art and 
architecture, you remember Phidias, a copy of 
whose immortal Parthenon we find among us, 
the masterpiece of our Exposition. 

T\ T e do well not to forget the work and the 
workers of the past. Here are the fountains 
whose streams have made glad and beautiful 
the earth. 

One hundred and twenty years ago a young 
man was moved by a divine impulse to pass 
the borders of civilization and build his cabin 
in the great valley of the Mississippi. 

In that early day it was known as the Hols- 
ton settlement, a part of North Carolina which 
afterwards became East Tennessee. It was a 
wild but good land then. The words of an old 
history describing a Land of Promise tells us 
of this country: "A land of brooks of water, of 
fountains and depths that spring out of valleys 
and hills — a land of wheat and barley and corn 
and honey — a land whose stones are iron and 
out of whose hills one may dig brass." 

It was then an unbroken forest from Virginia 
to the farthest west, save here and there the 
cabin of the pioneer or the wigwam of the 
savage. 

Into this wilderness rode a young man in 



Key. Samuel Doak. 



41 



1779. He was separating himself by choice 
and being separated by divine purpose for 
great things. 

History teaches that when God would put 
great forces in the field, he, first of all, sepa- 
rates the leaders to himself. Moses and Elijah 
were with him in the quiet and loneliness of 
the desert. John the Baptist and Paul were 
with him in the wilderness. The busy, hurry- 
ing, bustling world was shut out, and they 
were shut in with infinite wisdom, infinite 
power and infinite love. What a school ! One 
man for a scholar and God for a teacher! 
Here they learned of him, and with him held 
converse as a man with his friend. It made 
life serious, earnest and strong to be alone with 
God, and gave to the world the most beneficent 
characters found in the annals of history. 

Samuel Doak was separated from kith and 
kin and put in the wilderness of mountains and 
hills and savages to be the forerunner of a 
great people and the founder of institutions 
which have been a benediction to more than 
three generations. 

Obeying an impulse, like the apostle of old, 
he must go into the regions beyond, and hither 
he came into this land where now we dwell, as 
the "apostle of learning and of religion." 

He was born in Augusta County, Virginia, in 



42 



Eev. Samuel Doak. 



August, 1749, of Scotch -Irish parentage. His 
earl j life was one of struggle for self-develop- 
ment, that he might be a man as God intended. 
"Working his way in the academic course and 
then teaching to secure means for further pro- 
gress, he is soon found at Princeton, where he 
graduated under Dr. Witherspoon in 1775. 

In that day knowledge was sought with great 
earnestness. When a young man wanted an 
education, his first inquiry was, how can I 
make the money? In these latter years of pro- 
gress the young man's inquiry is, who will fur- 
nish the money to educate me? 

Studying theology under approved teachers 
— practical and godly men — for there were no 
theological seminaries in the land — Mr. Doak 
was licensed by the Presbjtery of Hanover, 
October, 1777. 

The following year he moved into the Hols- 
ton settlement, now East Tennessee. His first 
work was in Sullivan County in what is known 
as the Fork Church (New Bethel). It is prob- 
able that my great-grandfather, Joseph Rhea, 
of Ireland, had been preaching there for a few 
months, but did not settle on the field. Mr. 
Doak took charge and remained a year. In 
1780, he moved into Washington County, and 
located on what is known as Little Limestone. 

A singular providence caused him to settle 



Key. Samuel Doak. 



43 



here. Riding through the forest, he came up- 
on a company of men felling timber. They 
immediately asked his business, and were told 
that he was a preacher. They demanded an 
exercise of his gifts. Standing on a log, with 
his auditors sitting on the fallen trees around 
him, Mr. Doak preached his trial sermon. It 
seems to have been eminently satisfactory. He 
was called at once. Here he founded Salem 
Church and afterwards laid the foundations of 
a school which has been the fountain of bless- 
ing and power to all this western section. It 
was first chartered as Martin Academy and 
afterwards became Washington College, the 
first literary institution in the Mississippi 
Yalley. 

The beginnings of that day were small and 
simple. Three small cabins, made of logs, 
and you have the home, and the church, and 
the school. Early Presbyterianism, built on 
this foundation, and men stood firmly here to 
fight life's battles successfully and grow into 
perfect manhood. 

About this time there was a remarkable ex- 
citement in all the region. The struggle for 
independence was on, and fears were greater 
than hopes. The invading army was driving 
everything before it in the south and east. 
Word had been sent to the mountain-men of 



44 



Eev. Samuel Doak. 



Watauga that if they did not lay down their 
arms, a lesson would be taught them they would 
not soon forget. 

It was then that old men, and young men, 
and boys, at the call of Shelby, Campbell, and 
Sevier, could be seen rallying at Sycamore 
Shoals, on the Watauga. They came as the 
tribes came of old, when Samuel called, and 
there stood among them that day one like unto 
the judge of old, though the dew of his youth 
was still upon him. 

The scene beggars description. Hundreds 
of hardy men with rifle, blanket, and haversack, 
with their wives and their little ones, bowed 
their heads, while Samuel Doak led in prayer. 

Commending them to the favor of the God of 
battles, and asking protection for their wives 
and children in their absence, the prayer ends, 
when, springing to his feet, and looking like 
a messenger from the skies, he cried: "And 
now, my countrymen, the 'sword of the Lord 
and Gideon.'" Catching up the cry, the whole 
army shouted, "The sword of the Lord and 
Gideon." The far-off hilltops seemed to catch 
the shout, and, as if in joy at the coming 
struggle, tossed it from peak to peak, till every 
mountain was filled with the name of the Lord. 
And then the mighty cry rolled downward, fill- 
ing the happy valley with a music akin to that 



Rev. Samuel Doak. 



45 



of victory, while the sparkling Watauga, as a 
laughing maiden, went singing the praises of 
the men who were going to fight the battle and 
turn the tide of victory on King's Mountain. 

At his home on the Limestone, Dr. Doak 
accomplished the great work of his life. As 
preacher and teacher he laid foundations on 
which others have builded for more than a 
hundred years. 

Salem, New Bethel, Concord, Hebron, New 
Providence, and Carter's "Valley, in Hawkins 
county, and Mt. Bethel congregations were 
formed by him. 

The preacher of that day was a man among 
men. On Sabbath morning he might be seen 
neatly and plainly dressed, according to the 
fashion of the day. Then putting on his shot- 
pouch and powder-horn, with rifle in hand, he 
would mount his horse and ride away to church. 
There he would find an intelligent and gallant 
congregation, armed like himself, ready to hear 
the word, or fight for the defence of their 
homes. 

Dr. Doak was a plain, strong preacher of the 
word. He fed his people with the truth of God 
as he taught them in classics and mathematics, 
to make them strong men and women in the 
faith. 

He has been described as rather rugged and 



46 Eev. Samuel Doak. 



severe in aspect, above middle stature, knit 
brow and pressed lips, quick step, eye and face 
glowing with the light of faith and hope. 

The most distinguished feature of his life 
was his labor to educate men. He was truly 
an "apostle of learning." A great student him- 
self, mastering chemistry and Hebrew after he 
was sixty years old, he became a master to make 
others study. He was a profound classical and 
mathematical scholar. 

The pride of his mature life was Washington 
College. In his later years, he founded Tuscu- 
lum College. But the first institution he made 
the source of literary power in the land. 

From this institution have been constantly 
flowing out new streams which have been widen- 
ing and deepening in their course, "enriching 
the medical department with men of well-culti- 
vated genius, giving to the bench, the bar, the 
legislative halls, and especially the pulpit, their 
brightest ornaments." In short, this college has 
been a blessing to every department of civil 
and religious society. 

Here such men as James Gallaher, Gideon 
Blackburn, John W. and A. A. Doak, Dr. J. G. 
M. Ramsey, John Blair, William Dulaney, L. 
C. Haynes, John Netherland, James A. Lyon, 
N. G. Taylor, J. D. Tadlock, who were giants 
in their day, were educated. 



Rev. Samuel Doak. 



47 



Dr. Doak left his finger-prints on the workers 
in every field. Men of principles never die. 
They cease from their labors, but their work 
goes on. 

Men with a purpose are not driftwood on the 
stream. They plant themselves along the shore 
and live on in those who follow them. 

At the ripe age of four- score years, Dr. Doak 
was translated into the kingdom above. His 
body sleeps in old Salem church-yard among 
those he loved and taught. 

4< Taking him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again." 

It was said at his funeral, and a hundred 
years will not change the verdict: "It is be- 
lieved that his usefulness to his country either 
as a minister or as a teacher of letters and 
science has not been surpassed by that of 
any other man the United States has pro- 
duced." 

As Dr. Girardeau said of his old friend and 
co-laborer, Dr. Bachman, of Charleston, S. C, 
so may we say: "When Doak died, science 
and religion walked arm in arm and laid their 
blended wreaths of laurel upon his honored 
grave." 

In his great work of preaching, teaching, and 
travelling, Dr. Doak had true and noble help- 
meets. His first wife was Miss Esther H. Mont- 



48 



Eev. Samuel Doak. 



goniery, daughter of a Presbyterian minister in 
Virginia. His second wife was Mrs. Margaret 
McEwen, of Nashville, Tenn. These were true, 
noble and self-sacrificing women, and the church 
recognizes in them faithful co-laborers and 
well-beloved servants of Jesus Christ. 

Good wives make great men. Their hus- 
bands are known in the gates and their chil- 
dren rise up to call them blessed, because they 
have looked well to the ways of their house- 
holds and been willing servants of the church. 

I would pause here a moment to have you 
notice that a "distinguishing feature of that 
early civilization was education, and education 
for its own sake — not according to the modern 
utilitarian idea." 

The idea with these early teachers was to 
make men. They caught God's idea. The 
unit of value was manhood, not gold. "I will 
make a man more precious than fine gold." 

There was little artificial or decorative in their 
work; solid foundations and strong masonry all 
the way to the top. Such education always 
lifts man toward God and heaven. 

' ' 111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay." 

So you find Doak and Balch and Carrick and 
Anderson uniting the school with the church. 
The home, the school-room, and the pulpit 



Eev. Samuel Doak. 



49 



have always made men and women of whom 
the state and the church have been proud. 

The education of that day linked earth and 
heaven, God and man, and the product is such 
men as these. 

We are sometimes disposed to attribute a 
good deal to pure air and the mountain scenery 
of our land in the formation of character. 
These have their influence, but it is ideas that 
lift men heavenward, not mountains. "The 
reptile may crawl to the highest peak ; but it is 
only the bird of strong wing and dimless eye 
that can soar beyond the lightning's play and 
thunder's roll," and look unabashed in the face 
of the sun. 

Dr. Doak had many worthy successors. Two 
sons and one grandson followed his footsteps 
in the ministry and the work of education. 
John W. and Samuel W. Doak, his sons, be- 
came presidents of Washington College, also 
A. A. Doak, his grandson, filled the president's 
chair in 1844. 

" He was then young, handsome, ambitious, 
generous, and noble. In classical learning he 
equalled, if not surpassed, any scholar in the 
land. His whole mind and heart seemed in 
love with the Greek. 

" Sometimes he would read a passage in the 
original, and his rich, musical voice, and the 



50 



Kev. Samuel Doak. 



glow of his countenance, made you almost 
imagine that you were listening to the blind 
bard of Scio reciting his immortal story of 
Troy." 

In the pulpit he was like unto Chalmers. But 
time fails me to give more than a partial roll- 
call of the contemporaries, students, and suc- 
cessors of this great man. Their labors, like 
his, were abundant and faithful, and their mem- 
ories are fragrant. 

Cummins, Balch, and Blackburn stood with 
him on the field. " Close beside them Isaac 
Anderson, of giant mould in body, mind, and 
heart. John Doak, of mellifluous tongue; 
Charles Coffin, of classic eloquence ; Abel Pear- 
sons, of prophetic ken; David Nelson, of en- 
thusiastic zeal; James Gallaher, of majestic 
oratory ; and finally, the last of that generation 
to cross the flood and lay down his honors at 
the feet of the Master, the erratic, but gener- 
ous, brilliant, amiable, admirable Frederick A. 
Boss." 

A great crowd stand with these or follow in 
their train. William Eagleton, Jno. McCampbell, 
Stephen Bovell, William Minnis, Gideon S. 
White, Nathan Hood, James A. Lyon, Philhps 
Wood, Daniel Bagon, George A. Caldwell, all 
these and scores of others in the home-field 
(and Cyrus Kingsbury and Samuel A. Bhea in 



Key. Samuel Doak. 



51 



the foreign field) contended for the faith in the 
land where Doak laid the foundations. 

"Through faith these subdued kingdoms, 
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, es- 
caped the edge of the sword, out of weakness 
were made strong, waxed valliant in fight, 
turned to flight the armies of the aliens." 

This day the Presbyterian Church, the mother 
of us all, with parental affection and denomina- 
tional pride, places laurel wreathes upon their 
graves, and blesses God that they lived and 
labored in this fair land, and that the mortal 
remains of so many of them sanctify the soil, 
while they wait the glories of the resurrection 
morn. 

"Tho' dead they speak in reason's ear, 
And in example live; 
Their faith and hope and mighty deeds, 
Still fresh instruction give." 

And now, fathers and brethren, I am per- 
suaded the Master calls to us who remain to so 
live that when 

' ' We strike these desert tents 
And quit these desert sands " 

we shall greet him and them at the general 
assembly of the saints in the city of the Great 
King. 



PRESBYTERIANISM 

AND EDUCATION. 



Presbyterianism and Educa- 
tion. 



By W. W. MOORE, D. D. 



IN every nation known to history, education 
has been largely determined by religion. 
In ancient Egypt the schools were created and 
controlled absolutely by the hieratic class. In 
ancient Greece education was of the culture 
type as distinguished from the practical, be- 
cause the Greek religion looked to the perfec- 
tion of man as man, rather than to his equip- 
ment as workman. In ancient Kome, on the 
other hand, education was practical, that is, 
military or legal, because the religion of Rome 
regarded man chiefly as an instrument for 
the aggrandizement of the Roman State. The 
one great text-book of the ancient Hebrews 
was the Law of Moses, a book of religion. 
The one great text-book of the modern Mussul- 
man is the Koran of Mohammed, a book of 
religion. This dependence of education up- 
on religion is no less clearly seen in the early 
history of the Christian church, in the monastic 



56 Presbyterianism and Education. 

institutions of the Middle Ages, and in the 
cathedral and parochial schools which followed. 
But perhaps the most striking historical proof 
of it is found in the Reformation of the six- 
teenth century. That great movement, which 
wrought a radical change in the philosophy 
and practice of religion, was followed immedi- 
ately by a complete revolution in the theory of 
education. Prior to the Reformation, dogma 
played the principal part in religion, and as a 
consequence, education was based essentially 
on authority, the pupil being a passive and un- 
questioning recipient, occupied chiefly with 
the memorizing of texts and formula without 
investigation. * But when Protestantism redis- 
covered the principle of individualism, and 
asserted the right of private judgement ; when 
the Reformation, which Guizot has well called 
a "great insurrection of human intelligence," 
adopted as its formal principle the supremacy 
of Scripture, and maintained the right and 
duty of personal study and personal interpre- 
tation, the theory of blind submission to au- 
thority gave place to a system which appeals 
to free inquiry and which involves the exercise 
of the learner's own powers of thought and 
discovery. 

In view of this intimate historical relation 



* Johnson's Encyclopaedia, Education. 



Presbyterianism and Education. 57 



between the religious beliefs of men and their 
educational systems, it would be the strangest 
of all anomalies if that apostolic type of faith 
and order which we call Presbyterianism, and 
which we believe embodies most fully the 
great principles of the reformed religion, did 
not evince a strong affinity for the best educa- 
tional methods. The presumption thus raised 
by the very nature of Presbyterianism is fully 
borne out by the actual history of the church 
in the establishment and maintenance of 
schools and colleges. But if we would under- 
stand clearly the historical relation between 
Presbyterianism and education, we must con- 
sider carefully the logical or essential relation 
between them. There are three grounds of 
that relation, viz. : The Presbyterian Polity, 
or Mode of Church Government ; The Presby- 
terian Type of Worship, or Forms of Service ; 
and The Presbyterian Creed, or System of 
Doctrine. 

I. — The first reason for the intimate relation 
which has always existed between Presbyte- 
rianism and education is found in its polity, or 
method of ecclesiastical organization and gov- 
ernment. Modelled after the Israelitish com- 
monwealth and the apostolic church, Presbyte- 
rianism is republican in its form and spirit. Its 
fundamental principles are personal liberty and 



58 Peesbyteeianism and Education. 

constitutional organization. But, as has been 
well said, " the first impulse of a personal liberty 
which has not degenerated into license is self- 
culture. For liberty is just a chance to develop 
one's individuality." A personal liberty, such 
as is involved in the Protestant doctrine of the 
priesthood of all believers, bringing every man 
face to face with God, and teaching that each 
individual "must for himself realize the price- 
less benefits and dignities of redemption," gives 
to every man personal worth, and cannot fail to 
put a premium upon the best development of 
all his powers, intellectual and moral. The 
other principle is constitutional self-govern- 
ment. Presbyterianism holds that church power 
rests not in the clergy, but in the people, and 
that church government is administered not by 
a single individual, which would be monarchy, 
nor by a privileged class, which would be oli- 
garchy, nor immediately by the people, which 
would be democracy,* but by representatives of 
the people, chosen by the people, and sitting in 
constitutional assemblies. It is popular govern- 
ment by representative majorities. In short, the 
Presbyterian Church is an ecclesiastical repub- 
lic. Now, the very "first necessity of a success- 
ful republic is general intelligence. Presbyte- 
rianism has thus been compelled by the genius of 

* Thornwell, Presbyterian Encyclopedia, p. 694. 



pRESBYTERIANISM AND EDUCATION. 59 



its organization, even by the instinct of self-pre- 
servation, to promote the education of all its 
people." * A system which teaches that church 
power rests in the people, and is administered 
by representatives of the people, is of necessity 
the friend of the education of the people. 

This is the ground of Bancroft's statement 
that " Calvin was the father of popular educa- 
tion, the inventor of the system of free schools." 
John Knox, the greatest of Calvin's pupils and 
followers, was the founder of the free schools of 
Scotland. Before his day, many, even of the 
Scottish nobles, could not write their own names. 
But under his strong leadership, the Presbyte- 
rians of Scotland undertook as early as the middle 
of the sixteenth century to establish a school 
and appoint a schoolmaster in every parish 
throughout the kingdom, the sessions defray- 
ing the expenses of the poor out of the parish 
funds, and thus placing the advantages of the 
school within reach of the poorest peasant and the 
proudest noble alike. Side by side with Pres- 
byterian Scotland in the educational vanguard 
stood Presbyterian Holland, responding nobly 
to the memorable words of John of Nassau: 
"You must urge upon the States-General that 
they establish free schools." They were estab- 
lished all over the Netherlands, and the New 
* S. J. McPherson, Centennial Addresses. 



60 Peesbyteeianism and Education. 



England pilgrims found them there, and brought 
with them to America the same great system. 
Wherever these pilgrims and the Presbyterian 
emigrants from Scotland and Holland settled in 
the wilds of the new world, there the school- 
house was built beside the church. Nor did 
these pioneers of Presbyterianism wait for the 
days of peace and prosperity to do the work. 
The same men who blazed the first pathways 
through the forests, and found with their own 
feet the fords of the rivers, and built with their 
own hands their cabins in the clearings, in the 
face of all manner of privation and peril ; the 
same men who on the Sabbath gathered in their 
rude sanctuaries to worship almighty God, and, 

" Shook the depths of the desert's gloom 
With their hymns of lofty cheer," 

though exposed to the murderous incursions of 
savages, and who listened to the preacher with 
sentries posted and their rifles within ready 
reach, were the men who, out of their deep 
poverty, held high the lamp of learning also 
from the beginning, and speedily made the 
darkness of the wilderness to sparkle with 
points of light which have since spread into 
that wide radiance in which we rejoice to-day. 

Under the same Calvinistic impulse, institu- 
tions of higher learning, too, were planted from 
time to time : Harvard, William and Mary 



PRESBYTERIANISM AND EDUCATION. 61 



(which, though under Episcopal auspices, was 
founded by a Scotchman of Kepublican ideas), 
Princeton, Washington (in Virginia), Hampden- 
Sidney, and scores of others of later date. 
" The history of Presbyterianism in any region 
is largely also an educational history of that 
region." 

The course taken by some of the prelatic 
population of Virginia, who have since rendered 
such signal service to the cause of education in 
that commonwealth, affords a significant con- 
trast. "I thank God," said Sir William Berke- 
ley in 1661, "there are no free schools nor 
printing; and I hope we shall not have these 
hundred years ; for learning has brought diso- 
bedience and heresy and sects into the world, 
and printing has divulged them." But while 
prelatic Virginia thus furnished a few advocates 
of popular ignorance, Presbyterian Virginia 
uniformly and from the earliest days of the 
ancient Presbytery of Hanover has urged the 
necessity of popular education. And just a 
century after the time of Sir William Berkeley, 
Samuel Doak, of that same Presbytery of Han- 
over, was carrying the first library across the 
Alleghanies in bags on horseback t© endow his 
log college in Tennessee, the first classical 
school ever established in the Valley of the 
Mississippi, while shortly after Cumberland 



62 PrESBYTERIANISM AND EDUCATION. 



College, now the University of Nashville, the 
first educational institution ever planted in this 
city, began its career also under Presbyterian 
auspices. 

The common school system of America, too, 
as already intimated, is indebted for its exist- 
ence chiefly to that same stream of influence 
which flowed from Geneva through Scotland 
and Holland to the American colonies. But 
we do not find its fountain head even in Geneva. 
The two great principles which characterize 
Calvin's system, viz. : personal liberty or the 
worth of the individual, and republican organi- 
zation or constitutional self-government, are 
both derived directly from Scripture. The 
oriental idea of government, with a single, 
shining exception, has always been this, that 
the people existed for the glory of the ruler : 
the king was everything, the people nothing. 
Our idea of government is utterly different from 
this. We hold that, so far from the people 
existing for the glory of the ruler, the ruler 
exists for the good of the people. Where did 
we get that idea ? We got it from the excep- 
tional case just referred to, from the Hebrews, 
from the Bible, from God. It was he who 
first insisted upon a reversal of the oriental 
theory of despotism and gave to mankind the 
great democratic ideal of "a free government, 



Pkesbyteeianism and Education. 63 



of the people and by the people and for the 
people." It was he who first taught the dignity 
of man as man, and gave to the world the con- 
ception of a commonwealth. No student of 
comparative history can fail to be impressed 
with the world-wide difference between the 
pompous inscriptions of ancient Egypt and 
Babylon and that simple but matchless story 
of the common people which runs through the 
Old Testament Scriptures. On the one hand 
we have colossal egotism, high-sounding titles, 
boastful narrations of personal prowess, elabor- 
ate descriptions of royal wealth and splendor, 
kings, courts, wars, conquests, but not one word 
about the people, save, indeed, an occasional 
contemptuous reference to "the stinking multi- 
tude." On the other hand, we have not a 
favored individual, but a chosen people ; not a 
pampered despot, but a royal nation ; not the 
intrigues of courts and the exploits of kings 
only, but also and chiefly the everyday life of 
plain people, and there is throughout an un- 
mistakable respect for manhood as such, a dis- 
regard for the merely outward and accidental, 
a high estimate of the spiritual and essential, a 
just appreciation of personal character and 
piety regardless of the circumstances of birth 
or wealth or station. 

Observe the recurrence of that uplifting re- 



64 Presbyterianism and Education. 

frain throughout the Old Testament: "The 
Lord's portion is his people" (Deut. xxxii. 9); 
"The Lord taketh pleasure in his people" 
(Psalm cxlix. 4) ; the Lord said unto Pharaoh, 
"Thou art exalting thyself against my people" 
(Exod. ix. 17); "Let my people go, that they 
may serve me" (Exod. v. 1); "If thou lend 
money to any of my people that is poor, thou 
shalt not exact interest of him" (Exod. xxii. 
25). When the Israelites, in their folly, in- 
sisted upon having a king like the neighboring 
nations, God permitted it, but made it clear in 
the anointing of Saul that he was to be their 
servant and not their oppressor, saying to 
Samuel: "Anoint him to be captain over my 
people, that he may save my people out of the 
hand of" their enemies (1 Sam. ix. 16); insti- 
tuting at the same time, as a further safeguard, 
that great order of the prophets, who were 
thenceforth the spokesmen for the people 
against the tyranny of both kings and priests. 
This is just the first principle of our Presby- 
terianism, "the rights of the people," and here 
we find the real potency of Presbyterianism as 
an educator of men and a maker of citizens. 
It teaches that all men are the sons of the Lord 
Almighty ; that all are equal and all are kings ; 
that every soul is of infinite value and dignity ; 
and that each individual mind may be in direct 



Presbyterianism and Education. 65 



communication with its Creator. With such a 
conception of man, there can be no despotism 
in church or state ; no prelate or king can be 
lord over another man's conscience. * The his- 
toric opposition of Presbyterianism to all ty- 
ranny in church and state is, therefore, no ac- 
cident ; it is no accident that Presbyterianism 
has furnished more martyrs to Christianity 
since the Reformation than all other churches 
combined ; it is no accident that Presbyterian- 
ism has taken the lead in all those great move- 
ments which have secured the religious and 
civil liberty now enjoyed by all the foremost 
nations of the world. These things have 
sprung naturally and inevitably out of the 
Presbyterian estimate of the worth of the 
individual and the Presbyterian theory of 
government by the people. "Civil and religi- 
ous liberty are linked together. ... In whom 
does church power rest, in the people or 
in the clergy? When you settle this ques- 
tion, you decide the question of the' civil 
liberty of the nation. If you decide that the 
power rests with the clergy, then you establish 
a principle which, by an inevitable analogy, 
associates itself with the principle that the civil 
power rests in kings and nobles." Hence the 
remark of Lord Bacon, that " discipline by 
^Presbyterian Encyclopedia, page 685. 



66 Presbyterianism and Education. 

bishops is fittest for monarchy of all others." 
"But if you settle, as Presbyterians do, that 
church power rests in the people, in the church 
itself, then from this principle springs the 
other, that civil power rests in the people 
themselves, and that all civil rulers are the 
servants of the people." "If there is liberty 
in the church, there will be liberty in the state ; 
if there is no bishop in the church, there will 
be no tyrant on the throne." 

Hence it is that modern tyrants have, with 
one consent, recognized that Presbyterianism 
was their natural enemy, and have hated and 
feared it accordingly. Charles I. pronounced 
Calvinism a religion not fit for a gentleman. 
Charles I. said: "The doctrine [of the Presby- 
terians] is anti-monarchical"; and he added 
that "there was not a wiser man since Solo- 
mon than he who said, ' No bishop, no king.' " 
James I., born and reared a Scot, spoke what 
he knew when he said, at the Hampton- Court 
Conference, "Ye are aiming at a Scots Presby- 
tery, which agrees with monarchy as well as 
God and the devil." History has demonstrated 
that the views thus expressed by the Stuart 
kings were absolutely correct. Presbyterian- 
ism has not only placed a premium upon self- 
culture by its doctrine of personal liberty and 
its estimate of the worth of the individual; it 



Presbyterianism and Education. 



67 



lias not only placed a premium on general in- 
telligence by its republican polity, which rests 
the power of government in the people them- 
selves, and administers it through representa- 
tives of the people chosen by the people ; 
but, as a natural consequence, it has, in every 
age, been the chief educator of the people in 
the principles of civil liberty, and has, in every 
land, reared the noblest champions of human 
freedom. And so The Westminster Review, 
which is certainly no friend of our faith, says, 
emphatically, that "Calvinism sowed the seeds 
of liberty in Europe"; and again, "Calvinism 
saved Europe." Castelar, the eloquent Span- 
iard, says, " The Anglo-Saxon democracy is the 
product of a severe theology learned" in the 
cities of Switzerland and Holland. Macaulay 
has shown that the success of the great Revo- 
lution of 1688, which gave liberty to England, 
was, in a great measure, due to the heroism of 
the Presbyterians of Scotland who at Drum- 
clog contended for Christ's crown and covenant 
against the dragoons of Claverhouse, whose 
blood stained the heather at Bothwell Bridge 
and Ayrsmoss, and whose brethren in Ireland 
resisted to the death the army of King James 
at Derry. Ranke, the great historian of Ger- 
many, says that "John Calvin was virtually the 
founder of America." Bancroft, our own his- 



68 Pkesbytebianism and Education. 



torian, says: "We are proud of the free States 
that fringe the Atlantic. The Pilgrims of Ply- 
mouth were Calvinists; the best influence in 
South Carolina came from the Calvinists of 
France; William Penn was the disciple of the 
Huguenots; the ships from Holland that first 
brought colonists to Manhattan were filled with 
Calvinists. He that will not honor the memory 
and respect the influence of Calvin knows little 
of the origin of American liberty." Rufus Choate 
says: "I ascribe to ... . Geneva an influence 
that has changed the history of the world. I . . . 
trace to it ... . the opening of another era of 
. . . liberty; . . . the republican constitution 
framed in the cabin of The Mayflovier ; the di- 
vinity of Jonathan Edwards ; the battle of Bun- 
ker Hill, and the independence of America." 

These, be it remembered, are all disinterested 
testimonies by men who are not themselves Pres- 
byterians. One of them, Bancroft, adds this 
further statement of fact: "The first voice pub- 
licly raised in America to dissolve all connection 
with Great Britain came, not from the Puritans 
of New England, not from the Dutch of New 
York, not from the planters of Virginia, but 
from the Scotch- Irish Presbyterians of North 
Carolina." The Mecklenburg Declaration of 
Independence in May, 1775, was the work of 
Presbyterians exclusively, nine of its signers 



Presbyterianism and Education. 69 



being Presbyterian elders and one a Presbyte- 
rian minister. Fourteen months after that 
memorable action, when, in Philadelphia the 
Colonial Congress was hesitating to pass the 
Declaration of National Independence, it was 
the eloquence of an illustrious Presbyterian 
that swept the waverers to a decision — John 
Witherspoon, the President of Princeton, the 
only minister of any denomination who signed 
that immortal document. Later still, in one of 
the darkest hours of the Revolution, the great 
Washington said that, should all his plans be 
crushed, he would plant his standard on the 
Blue Ridge, and rallying round him the Scotch 
Irish, made a final stand for freedom on the 
Virginia frontier. It has been said to this 
sterling strain belongs the unique distinction 
of being the only race in America that never 
produced a Tory. Calvinism, in fact, was 
the backbone of the Revolution. "While the 
Quakers were non-combatants and stood aloof 
from the conflict; while the Episcopalians as 
a rule were against the colonies and in favor 
of the crown; while the Methodists followed 
the mother church and imitated John Wes- 
ley himself in their denunciation of the re- 
volting Americans, the Congregational minis- 
ters of New England and the Presbyterian 
ministers from Long Island to Georgia gave 



70 Pkesbyterianism and Education. 



to the cause of the colonies all that they 
could give of the sanction of religion." As for 
Presbyterian elders and laymen, when we re- 
member the remark of George Alfred Townsend 
(Gath) who says: "When I want to find the 
grave of an officer in the Kevolutionary army, 
I go to a Presbyterian graveyard, and there I 
find it"; when we remember that nearly all of 
the officers in command at King's Mountain, 
the most successful battle, save one, that was 
ever fought by American arms were Presbyte- 
rian elders, and that their troops were mustered 
from Presbyterian settlements; when we re- 
member that General Morgan and General 
Pickens who turned the tide of the whole war 
at the Cowpens were Presbyterian elders ; when 
we remember that after his surrender at Sara- 
toga Burgoyne said to Morgan concerning his 
Scotch-Irish riflemen, " Sir, you have the finest 
regiment in the world"; when we remember 
that Generals Moultrie, Sullivan, Sumter, Stark, 
Knox, Koutledge, Wayne, and scores of other 
officers, as well as thousands of the Eevolu- 
tionary rank and file were of the same sturdy 
stock, it is hardly too much to say with Dr. 
Archibald Hodge that "The Shorter Catechism 
fought through successfully the Revolutionary 

55 

war. 

Moreover, Presbyterianism became the mould 



Presbyterianism and Education. 71 

of the republic; many of the men who had 
been trained in her republican polity were 
called into the councils of the nation for the 
purpose of organizing the new government. It 
is no surprise, therefore, to hear Chief-Justice 
Tilghman declaring that "The framers of the 
Constitution of the United States were greatly 
indebted to the standards of the Presbyterian 
Church (of Scotland) in modelling that ad- 
mirable instrument." 

It is no surprise to hear the New York Sun, 
after referring to the extraordinary number of 
Presbyterians who have held places of promi- 
nence in the Federal and state governments, as 
presidents, vice-presidents, cabinet officers, 
congressmen, and governors, declaring that 
there must be something about Presbyterianism 
itself that makes so many of its adherents pre- 
eminently successful in politics. "The Metho- 
dists in this country," it continues, "are nearly 
four times as numerous, but they seem to be 
much less skillful in politics than the Presby- 
terians. The Baptists, too, are thrice as nu- 
merous as the Presbyterians ; but fewer of them 
than of the Presbyterians gain the mastery in 
the political field." For instance, it is stated 
by The Green Bag, a well-known law journal, 
that every chief-justice of the Supreme Court of 
New Jersey since the Revolution, with one ex- 



72 Peesbytebianism and Education. 



ception, has been a Presbyterian. The very> 
great majority of the associate justices also have 
been Presbyterians and many of them elders. 
Of similar significance is the fact that all the 
governors of North Carolina since the civil war, 
with three exceptions, have been Presbyterians, 
and most of them elders. Aye, Mr. Dana, you 
were right. There is something about Presby- 
terianism that educates men for the high func- 
tions of republican citizenship and republican 
rule. It is the republican polity of Presbyte- 
rianism. Therefore, no man who knows the 
history of his country need feel the slightest 
surprise at the recent declaration of Ambas- 
sador Bayard that the Presbyterians "stand 
for the best element of America's greatness." 

Let me pause here a moment to preserve my- 
self from misapprehension. I yield to no man 
in my admiration for the splendid services ren- 
dered to this country and the world by our 
brethren of the Baptists, Methodist, and Epis- 
copal churches. God bless them all abundantly. 
We are all at one in our devotion to our coun- 
try's best interests now. Nothing is further 
from my purpose than to make any undue sec- 
tarian claim. But it is claiming only what our 
brethren of the other churches concede when 
we say that Presbyterians, as a body, have al- 
ways led the van in the great struggle for hu- 
man freedom. 



Presbyterianism and Education. 73 



In all these ways, then, the Presbyterian 
polity has been a promoter of education, not 
only in the narrow sense of intellectual culture, 
but in the wider and truer sense of the de- 
velopment of character and the making of men 
and citizens. 

By its fundamental principle of personal lib- 
erty and the worth of the individual, it has 
strongly stimulated self- culture. By its funda- 
mental principle of representative government, 
with its inevitable demand for general intelli- 
gence, it has strongly stimulated popular edu- 
cation. 

And, growing out of these two, as naturally 
as a tree springs from its roots, it has devel- 
oped a strong type of manly character, hatred 
of tyranny, and love of liberty, in the state as 
well as the church, and, we think, has become 
the best promoter of ideal citizenship that the 
word has ever seen. 

II. — The second reason for the intimate rela- 
tion which has always existed between Presby- 
terianism and education is found in its type of 
worship. This has been so well stated by Dr. 
Simon J. McPherson that I make bold to quote 
his paragraph entire. He says : "Its forms of 
worship are usually simple and non-ritualistic 
(like those of the New Testament.) ... In 
view of the dangers of formalistic and spectac- 



74 Presbyterianism and Education. 



ular services, the common Presbyterian custom 
has been to follow an order which is plain and 
reasonable, and, perhaps, occasionally austere. 
Often defective in beautiful ceremonies, which 
appeal to the aesthetic instincts, sometimes defi- 
cient also in the enthusiasm which warms the 
feelings, Presbyterianism has steadily made its 
specific impression upon the mind rather than 
the tastes or the emotions, appealing to ideas 
and convictions more directly than to the sen- 
timents or the external senses. Accordingly, 
Mr. Fronde (who is certainly no friend of Pres- 
byterianism) has said: "When emotion, and 
sentiment, and tender imaginative piety have 
become the handmaids of superstition, and have 
dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there 
is any difference between lies and the truth, 
the slavish form of belief called Calvinism, in one 
or other of its many forms, has borne ever an 
inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and 
preferred rather to be ground to powder, like 
flint, than to bend before violence, or melt un- 
der enervating temptation." This is a result 
of the robust thoughtfulness of Presbyterian 
worship. 

"In particular, Presbyterianism has always 
exalted the sermon as a leading part of wor- 
ship, and thus emphasized the teaching func- 
tion of the minister to the extinction of the 



Presbyterianism and Education. 75 

priestly. . . . The high themes of the Chris- 
tian pulpit, in the hands of trained and earnest 
men, have supplied a measureless educational 
force. . . . Popular ignorance scatters like 
mist before the sun in the presence of able, 
convincing, and persuasive sermons. 

In view of this uniform importance which 
Presbyterianism has attached to the didactic 
vocation of the pulpit, it naturally produces a 
peculiar type of experience and character in its 
worshippers. If they come short in artistic 
sensibility, if they are reserved in the expres- 
sion of passionate fervor, they are, as a class, 
highly developed in the substantial elements of 
intellect, judgment and conscience. They are 
trained to think, to reason, to weigh, and to de- 
cide for themselves. . . . They can gene- 
rally give a reason for the hope that is in them. 
. . . They follow common sense and appoint 
themselves detectives of humbug, and they are 
remarkably free from visionary whims, caprices 
and vagaries." 

The religious blatherskite finds his least con- 
genial field in a Presbyterian community. His 
real measure is too quickly taken. The bois- 
terous mountebanks who in our day have de- 
graded the fine name of evangelist, and whose 
principal stock in trade is boundless egotism, 
brazen impudence, and coarse abuse of the 



76 Presbyterianism and Education. 

steady-going saints of God, make their least 
impression upon your true-blue Presbyterian, 
who does not believe in evangelists for revenue 
only. At a time like this, " when whole multi- 
tudes are carried away by that wind of doctrine, 
the theory of sinless perfection, it is pertinent 
to ask why the Presbyterian Church has been 
almost untouched by that movement," says the 
Synodical Evangelist. " The answer is obvious 
enough. The Presbyterian Church has a creed 
which it believes and which it teaches (from its 
pulpits and in its homes). That creed contains 
the corrective to most forms of error in its 
statements of positive truth. . . . Our Metho- 
dist and Baptist brethren would have been 
saved much trouble in this State if their chil- 
dren had been taught (with equal thoroughness) 
that ' no mere man, since the fall, is able, in this 
life, perfectly to keep the commandments of 
God,' and that 'the souls of believers are at 
their death made perfect in holiness.' " 

III. But this brings us to the third reason 
for the intimate relation which has always ex- 
isted between Presbyterianism and education, 
viz. : its creed, or system of doctrine. We 
have already seen that, in common with the 
other great branches of the Protestant church, 
it holds that the Bible is the only and sufficient 
rule of human faith and duty, and that it is ad- 



Presbyterianism and Education. 77 



dressed directly to the reason and conscience 
of every individual. It thus "brings into the 
foreground the crucial educational power of 
personal responsibility," and, moreover, con- 
centrates the study of all its members .upon 
those sixty-six heaven- born books, which, for 
simplicity, dignity and power of style, variety, 
interest and importance of matter, perfection of 
ideals for character and conduct, and efficacy 
of impulse to righteousness — in short, for edu- 
cational value — never have had and never will 
have a peer or rival in the literature of the 
world. 

More distinctively, by its doctrine of divine 
sovereignty and foreordination, Presbyterian- 
ism tends to fix the mind upon the chief sub- 
ject of Scripture, God himself, who, as Daniel 
Webster said, is the greatest thought that can 
occupy the human soul. Pope's celebrated 
line informs us that "the proper study of man- 
kind is man." No, says Calvinism, the proper 
study of mankind is God. Theology is the 
queen of all the sciences. No other can so 
expand and invigorate the mind. Furthermore, 
the study of God's sovereign will and all-inclu- 
sive plan lies at the basis of all sound educa- 
tion, because any true knowledge of nature and 
man is otherwise impossible. 

But the educative influence of the Presbyte- 



78 Presbyterianism and Education. 



rian creed does not lie chiefly in particular doc- 
trines, great as the influence of these has been, 
but in its matchless organization of these doc- 
trines into a system. The study of history does 
not adequately inform or strengthen the mind 
when it consists merely of memorizing critical 
dates and leading events, but only when it 
teaches the relation of those events to one an- 
other, and views them as a connected whole. 
The study of the external world which really 
educates the mind is not that which merely ac- 
quaints the learner with separate phenomena, 
but that which shows the meaning of the facts in 
their mutual connections. So here. The educa- 
tional power of Presbyterianism is largely due 
to its systematizing tendencies, its genius for 
analysis, definition and generalization. The 
Presbyterian mind is constructive. The Pres- 
byterian symbols are the world's masterpieces 
of theological statement. Whatever else men 
may say of the Presbyterian creed, they must 
and do grant that it is, at least, a triumph of 
logic. And it is this that has made it an edu- 
cator, not only of its ministers but also of its 
people. It is here that we find the true secret 
of the intellectual supremacy of Scotland. Do 
you ask the reason for the fact noted by every 
traveller in Europe that no peasantry in the 
world equals the peasantry of Scotland for in- 



Presbyterianism and Education. 79 



telligence, power of independent thought, and 
firm grasp of the great doctrines of Scripture? 
Let the Edinburgh Review answer: "The 
high intelligence which has long distinguished 
and still distinguishes the lower classes of Scot- 
land may largely be attributed to the Presby- 
terian form of church government, especially 
taken in connection with the Calvinistic creed. 
The apprehension of that creed cannot fail to 
stimulate the mind ; the working of that form 
of government has accustomed Scotchmen of 
every rank to look upon it as a duty and a right 
to exercise their judgments on questions involv- 
ing directly or indirectly the most important 
subjects of human thought." 

The Rev. Dr. Curry, an able and distin- 
guished leader of the great Methodist church 
in America, says of the Westminster Confes- 
sion of Faith: "It is the clearest and most 
comprehensive system of doctrine ever framed. 
It is not only a wonderful monument of the in- 
tellectual greatness of its framers, but also a 
comprehensive embodiment of nearly all the 
precious truths of the gospel. We concede to 
the Calvinistic churches the honor of having 
all along directed the best thinking of the 
country." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson laments in the follow- 
ing language the effect of New England's lapse 



80 Presbyterianism and Education. 

from Calvinism to Unitarianism : " Our later 
generation appears ungirt, frivolous, compared 
with the religions of the last or Calvinistic age. 
. . . The religion seventy years ago was an 
iron belt to the mind, giving it concentration 
and force. A rude people were kept respect- 
able by the determination of thought on the 
eternal world. Now, men fall abroad, want 
polarity, suffer in character and intellect." 

These statements are true. The educational 
influence of Calvinism in the development of 
character is no less marked than its effect upon 
the mind. As has been forcibly said by another 
brilliant American who had no love for Presby- 
terianism : " There is no system which equals 
Calvinism in intensifying, to the last degree, 
ideas of moral excellence and purity of char- 
acter. There never 'was a system since the 
world stood which puts upon man such motives 
to holiness, or which builds batteries which 
sweep the whole ground of sin with such hor- 
rible artillery. Men may talk as much as they 
please against the Calvinists and Puritans and 
Presbyterians, but you will find that when they 
want to make an investment they have no- 
objection to Calvinism or Puritanism or Pres- 
byterianism. They know that where these 
systems prevail, where the doctrine of men's 
obligation to God and man is taught and prac- 



Presbyterianism and Education. 81 



ticed, there their capital may be safely in- 
vested." "They tell us," he continues, "that 
Calvinism plies men with hammer and with 
chisel. It does, and the result is monumental 
marble. [Some] other systems leave men soft 
and dirty; Calvinism makes them of white 
marble, to endure forever." 

Some people tell us that Calvinism is dead, 
and ever and anon some ephemeral brother, 
well-meaning but ill-informed, with no thorough 
knowledge of either theology or history, preaches 
its funeral. It is scarcely worth while to reply 
to them. It reminds one of the gnat which 
lighted on the horn of the ox and said, politely, 
"If I am too heavy for you, let me know, and I 
will get off." " I did not know you were there," 
replied the ox. These somewhat premature 
funeral orators do not distress Calvinists by their 
weight. They evidently do not know that the 
Presbyterian church is the largest Protestant 
church in the world to-day, having a constitu- 
ency of more than 20,000,000 people. Do we 
seem to boast? Well, this is our year for boast- 
ing. A little self-complacency may be forgiven 
us in the year when we are celebrating the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the West- 
minster Assembly. But, seriously, we beg you 
to notice that in making out the foregoing case 
we have been careful to quote our proofs uni- 
formly from men who are not Presbyterians. 



82 Presbyterianism and Education. 



I have left myself but a moment to speak of 
the obligations involved in our profession of 
this particular form of the Protestant faith. 
We have seen that Presbyterianism has been 
one of the great educational factors of the 
world. By its polity, its worship, and its creed 
it has been a maker of scholars, a maker of 
books, a maker of institutions, a maker of na- 
tions, and a maker of men. Mr. Moderator, 
fathers, and brethren, this history is our herit- 
age. What then ? Should we not hold it be- 
fore the rising generation as a mighty incentive 
to high thinking and heroic endeavor? "The 
historian Sallust tells us that the Roman mo- 
thers trained their children in the presence of 
the busts and statues of their ancestors. In 
like manner we should train our children and 
our rising ministry, as it were, in the presence 
of their forefathers, in all the memories of their 
past history, and urge them, as the Roman mo- 
thers did, never to be satisfied while the virtues 
and victories of the past were more numerous 
or more glorious than those of the present." 
The age in which we live is one which calls 
loudly for the Presbyterian type of education 
and religion — an age whose religious, philo- 
sophic, and economic problems can be satis- 
factorily solved only by that power of inde- 
pendent, vigorous, and revarent thinking on the 



Presbyterianism and Education. 83 



part of the great masses of the people, the cle- 
Telopnient of which is one of the historic dis- 
tinctions of our beloved church. Let her watch- 
words in the past be her watchwords for the 
future : No religion without education ; no edu- 
cation divorced from religion. 

She "dreads no skeptic's puny hands 

While near her school the church-spire stands, 

Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule 

While near her church-spire stands the school." 



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